Don't... (*Day#6)

Today's Infertility Awareness Post Includes Two of the Most Important Ones... 

Don't Treat Them Like They Are Ignorant and Don't Say They Are Not Meant to Be Parents or It Will Happen In Gods Time.

These are my biggest pet peeves living with infertility. I know that your just trying to comfort me, by saying that God will grant me another child in his time, but really all that does is make me more angry. It makes me angry with God, and leaves me to wonder if you even have any idea on how much it hurts, and how alone I feel. It makes me feel like my body hates me and can't do the ONE thing that it was meant to do, and it makes me feel like slapping you in the face. 

The other thing that gets to me, is when people think us infertility folks are ignorant, because we are being "unrealistic" about our infertility. Have you ever spend thousands of dollars on IVF? Fertility Treatments? Gotten an HSG? Spent months on Clomid or Femera? And still not gotten pregnant? Or how about this... Have you ever had to BBT, or Time your Sex with your partner? OR buy OPTK's or become a POAS-a-holic? Or Chart your CM or CP? This is why infertility feels like sometimes its a chore. Because in all actuality, it kind of is... you have to live each day taking medications, and doing the deed or "BDing" when your most fertile. You get up in the morning, temp, and then piss on a stick or POAS to see if your OPTK or ovulation prediction test kit is positive or negative. Than you check your cervical position and the cervical mucous and you chart it...

If you think it is us being ignorant... think again...

That is the reality of someone with infertility.

Don't Treat US like WE Are Ignorant!

For some reason, some people seem to think that infertility causes a person to become unrealistic about the responsibilities of parenthood. 

I don't follow the logic, but several people told me that I wouldn't ache for a baby so much if I appreciated how much responsibility was involved in parenting.

Let's face it-no one can fully appreciate the responsibilities involved in parenting until they are, themselves, parents. That is true whether you successfully conceived after one month or after 10 years. The length of time you spend waiting for that baby does not factor in to your appreciation of responsibility. If anything, people who have been trying to become pregnant longer have had more time to think about those responsibilities. They have also probably been around lots of babies as their friends started their families.

Perhaps part of what fuels this perception is that infertile couples have a longer time to "dream" about what being a parent will be like. Like every other couple, we have our fantasies-my child will sleep through the night, would never have a tantrum in public, and will always eat his vegetables. 

Let us have our fantasies. Those fantasies are some of the few parent-to-be perks that we have-let us have them. You can give us your knowing looks when we discover the truth later.

This is one that can really hurt. its something that you already think about.. why is this happening to me? what did i do wrong? what am i being punished for? 

Don't Say WE Aren't Meant to Be Parents

One of the cruelest things anyone ever said to me is, "Maybe God doesn't intend for you to be a mother." How incredibly insensitive to imply that I would be such a bad mother that God felt the need to divinely sterilize me. 

If God were in the business of divinely sterilizing women, don't you think he would prevent the pregnancies that end in abortions? Or wouldn't he sterilize the women who wind up neglecting and abusing their children? Even if you aren't religious, the "maybe it's not meant to be" comments are not comforting. 

Infertility is a medical condition, not a punishment from God or Mother Nature.

Another comment that really hurts is when a new mom says something like I know God loves me because he gave me this baby. For those that are struggling, it makes them feel that they don't have a baby because God doesn't love them. 

Yes I know that is not their intention, but it does hurt.